"Tsu": Narihira in the Snow at Ono, from the series "Tales of Ise in Fashionable Brocade Pictures (Furyu nishiki-e Ise monogatari)"

Designed by Katsukawa Shunsho around 1767, this color woodblock print belongs to the series Tales of Ise in Fashionable Brocade Pictures, known in Japanese as Furyu Nishiki-e Ise Monogatari. Each sheet in the cycle is keyed to a syllable of the Japanese phonetic order, and the syllable Tsu is paired here with one of the most celebrated episodes from the classical narrative Ise Monogatari: the courtier poet Ariwara no Narihira making his way through a snowstorm to visit the secluded retreat of Prince Koretaka at Ono. Shunsho stages the literary moment with a contemporary sensibility characteristic of Edo ukiyo-e, dressing the figure in stylish robes that would have appealed to fashionable patrons rather than reproducing strict Heian costume. The wintry setting is suggested through restrained printing of pale grounds and selective use of color, allowing the textured surface of the snow and the silhouettes of the travelers to dominate the composition. Although Shunsho is best remembered today for the yakusha-e portraits that defined the Katsukawa school's revolutionary approach to actor prints, the Ise Monogatari series demonstrates his fluency in the courtly classical mode. The print is preserved at the Art Institute of Chicago, where it stands as a record of how early full-color nishiki-e designers reimagined revered literary subjects within the visual language of the Edo period.